Toronto’s rental housing prices are higher than ever seen, and the cost of owning a home has skyrocketed. In addition, Metropolitan Toronto has remained at a 1% vacancy rate for the last 3 years, while the city needs to have at least a 3% vacancy of rental units to represent a healthy housing system. Therefore, Google/Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto have a unique opportunity to incorporate affordable housing measures into the planning of Quayside, not just for middle and higher income households in which they are marketing to, but for those who are truly feeling the pressures to leave the city to be able to afford the cost of rent. However, these organizations are not doing enough to positively contribute to this current challenge residents are facing with affordability. In addition, Toronto’s public housing and subsidized housing structures are not doing what is necessary to satisfy the needs of the residents as well, so Waterfront Toronto and city residents must be urging Sidewalk Labs to incorporate actual permanent solutions to our affordable housing stock, and set a standard for what is truly appropriate for this community.
Toronto has always been a middle-class city, and one major way that residents have historically had the ability to build personal equity has been through homeownership. Home prices have been rising steadily since the 1950’s, and up until the 90’s so did income. However, Toronto’s incomes have become relatively stagnant as of late, and the housing market has dramatically increased in value in the last 20 years, making the same age demographics that once were able to begin building their wealth through homeownership unable to enter into the market. Since I can remember, I have been reminded that homeownership is something that is no longer obtainable for young adults of low to middle income in Toronto, and the only way to live in stable and affordable homes is by leaving the city and residing in other more affordable towns in Ontario.
This map highlights the changes in rent prices from 2011 to 2016 by ward, using the 44 ward system that previously existed in the city at that time. It shows previously more affordable wards becoming more expensive in the last 5 years, and wards that were already about average in cost rising to become increasingly unaffordable as well. In addition, the last layer shows the areas of greatest change in costs of rent over the 5 year timeframe. As shown in the map's legend, the average increase in rent from 2011 to 2016 across all wards in the city was 19%, with certain witnessing a shocking increase of around 30% as well.
The high cost of home ownership has influenced the rental market as a result. There are more renters in the city than ever before - currently 47% of Metropolitan Toronto are renters - and there are not enough rental units in the city to satisfy demand. In addition, affordable housing policies have been rolled back since the 1990’s, when the glass condominium developments began making a strong presence in Toronto, which has created a major challenge for residents to find affordable homes inside the city limits. When the Quayside project breaks ground along the waterfront, those living in rental housing downtown will see market rate rents increase, and without necessary policies to ensure stability of appropriate rents, we will see a rising trend of people forced to leave Toronto searching for affordable homes.
In this site plan, Sidewalk Labs highlights that they have created an “unprecedented commitment to affordable housing”. What is deemed as unprecedented is a plan where 40% of their units will be recognized as below market rate; 20% will be priced for middle income residents and 20% will be affordable housing. However, the site plan does not outline the processes that will allow for these affordability measures to become a reality. In Toronto, 47% of tenants are rent burdened, and the median income is $65,000 - the lowest for all regions in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. In addition, 35.1% of all employed Torontonians had an annual employment income under $20,000, which highlights the incredibly large gap in income distribution throughout the city as well. Furthermore, the city-average rent for a 2-bedroom hovers just over $1,420 a month for purpose built apartments and $2,400 for condominium rentals; therefore, having an affordable housing plan that is aimed at being below rental market rates, but does not claim to address rents based on actual incomes is not sufficiently beneficial to the community.
When Waterfront Toronto released their RFP for Quayside, they provided a baseline program for what they expected their innovation partner to provide for affordable housing. These guidelines include having at least 93% of the units in the development be residential, with a number of homes that can accommodate approximately 6,200 residents. However, Sidewalk Labs has managed to convince Waterfront Toronto to accept less than they initially asked for. In Sidewalk Labs’ proposal, they outline a program which will allow for 68% of units to be residential, significantly decreasing the ask from Waterfront Toronto by 25%, and stated that there will be approximately 2,500 residential units, rather than the 3,100 that was asked for them to produce as well. The decrease in residential unit numbers means that Sidewalk Labs can only accommodate for 5,000 people instead of the 6,200 benchmark set by Waterfront Toronto. In a city where a vacancy rate sits as low as it does currently, where rates of immigration are high and Canadians from other cities, provinces and territories are migrating to Toronto as well, we need to be able to provide suitable housing options for a growing number of people from diverse backgrounds and varying incomes. By decreasing the baseline amount of housing in the proposal, and completely disregarding the outline provided by Waterfront Toronto – the company who invited Sidewalk Labs into Quayside – proves their ability to manipulate and abuse solely through the corporate power they hold. Lastly, Sidewalk Labs does not outline how they will make the 20% of low income housing units affordable as well. We are unsure what subsidies they will be using from the city, province or federal government if any, and that raises concerns about whether or not these units will have the ability to remain permanently affordable. The document does outline that the planned middle income housing will be ‘affordable’ due to cheaper construction costs from using mass timber in their production. Again, this does not provide any evidence as to whether their rents will be below market rate permanently. Cheaper construction costs will not maintain unit affordability when, in a few years, they will be under pressure from the market forces that influence housing prices. Finally, the ‘Unprecedented Affordable Housing’ plan states that 50% of the residences will be purpose-built, which highlights that the other 50% of units will not meet that criteria, falling under the category of luxury homes. This implies that Sidewalk Labs will realistically participate in the typical Toronto development practice of building condominiums - the type of housing that Dan Doctoroff has stated as being a major challenge for affordability in the city’s existing housing stock. My hypothesis of condominium development in this neighborhood stems from Doctoroff’s statement in a recent interview, where he mentioned that this project hopes to earn most of its money in Quayside through its real estate; this in a city where condominiums have always provided the biggest returns on investment.